


Can you hear it too?

by ToxicPineapple



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Deaf Character, F/F, Familial Relationships, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Human!Kiibo, Hurt/Comfort, I think you guys know where I'm going with this, Kaede Has Two Dads, Lamenting About The Bullshit That Is Having A Soulmate, Non-Hope's Peak AU, Platonic Relationships, Romance, Soulmate AU, as in Deaf with a capital D, miscommunications, soulmate, very brief mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: Since she had never heard the singing before, she didn’t really know how the “hearing someone sing” thing worked. Was it a voice somewhere in the back of her mind? Or did it sound like they were standing there with her? And if her soulmate was singing along to music, like the boy was then with her piano playing, would she hear that too? Could his soulmate, whoever that was, hear her playing the piano?Kaede sang on occasion (even though she was really very bad at it) but she wondered if her soulmate could hear her when she was playing the piano too. Was it a singing-only situation? Or did it apply to all kinds of music? Maybe they could only hear her playing the piano when she was singing as well. But that wouldn’t be good at all, because she was terrible at singing and playing all at once.---In a world where you can hear it every time your soulmate sings, what does it mean when you don't hear anything at all?---My first entry for the FWC Soulmate Writing Collaboration!
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Akamatsu Kaede's Family, Akamatsu Kaede & Saihara Shuichi, Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki, All Relationships Are Minor Except For The Kaemaki, Amami Rantaro/Saihara Shuichi, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko, K1-B0/Ouma Kokichi
Comments: 26
Kudos: 105
Collections: FWC Soulmate Collection





	Can you hear it too?

Kaede was pretty sure that she didn’t have a soulmate.

She hadn’t told anyone that she felt that way. Her family wouldn’t have received it properly. She felt a bit bad deciding that before she’d even considered talking to her fathers (or her sister) about the feeling, but she knew that that she was right about how they would react. Because she knew them, and she knew the kind of people that they were.

When Kaede was eleven, her dad sat her down for the very first time and told her about soulmates, or gave her the soulmate talk, rather. It was a fairly belated discussion, obviously; Kaede’s peers had been talking about (and by extension making fun of people for) soulmates since she entered grade school. But it was nice that her dad thought to do so anyway. He explained that everyone had a soulmate, and that whenever your soulmate sang, you’d be able to hear them. When he fell silent, Kaede bit her lip, because while she knew what soulmates were, she had never actually  _ heard  _ anyone singing before- at least that only she could hear-, and casually, she asked, “How old were you when you first heard Papa sing?”

Her dad pondered the question for a moment, and then he said, “I must’ve been four or five? It was really awful singing, I’ll be honest.” From the other room, Kaede’s papa yelled,  _ oh, yeah, and you were a Freddie Mercury in your elementary school years, for sure,  _ which made her giggle before the implications of what her dad was saying began to sink in. Since he was four or five?

Kaede blinked at him, and brought her thumbnail to her lips. “Uhm, well, what does it mean if you… don’t hear anyone singing?” Her dad considered the question, a tiny frown on his face, and she found herself hoping (in a manner that was probably unbefitting of an eleven year old) that he wasn’t worried about why she asked the question. She was sure that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, that her dad was about to say, so there was really no reason to be stressing out about it. Still, she had to consciously stop herself from wringing her hands in the sheets, knowing that her dad would notice. Instead, she drummed them on the knees like she was playing  _ Für Elise-  _ something that would become a habit in the years to pass- and waited for his reply.

“There are a lot of reasons.” Her dad said evenly. He offered her a tiny smile, and Kaede relaxed a little bit. He had really very kind eyes, and it was impossible not to notice, especially when he was smiling like that, in a comforting way. It stopped her from bringing her hand to her mouth and chewing at her cuticle, another nasty habit that would get worse when she got older. “It’s possible that your soulmate just doesn’t like to sing.”

“Or maybe you don’t have one!” Kashiko, Kaede’s twin (but younger sister, naturally; Kashiko was born right after Kaede was, and it mattered a lot) stood in the doorway, her honey-blonde hair in twin braids. When she grinned, her braces caught the light, and Kaede blinked a little bit, trying to adjust to it. “I know  _ I  _ don’t.”

“Kashiko…” sighed her dad. He didn’t seem truly upset, but the reprimand in his tone was clear. He was trying to have a serious conversation and Kashiko was probably making things more difficult on him. Kaede, personally, didn’t mind all that much. She smiled at her sister, because she had heard her sister state as much before, and it wasn’t really anything new to her.

  
“What? I don’t wanna have a soulmate! That stuff is gross.” She bounced into the room and dropped down onto the mattress next to Kaede. “Papa talked to me about this stuff yesterday, and he said that I’m probably right.”  _ Knowing Kashiko,  _ Kaede thought,  _ Papa only said that so she’d let it go…  _ “I’ve never heard any singing before unless it was on the radio or they were in the room with me!” She let out a laugh, as if that wasn’t exactly the case with her sister, and added joyfully, “Maybe they’re dead!”

Kaede’s heart sunk, and as she felt her face paling, her dad said quickly, “I really don’t think that’s the case. I’m sure that you’d know, if your soulmate had died.” He said it with certainty, but it was hard to really know if he knew what he was talking about, since he diffused the statement by using the words “I’m sure.” _ Even if he’s sure, _ Kaede thought,  _ he can still be wrong. _

“Has it ever happened to you before?” Asked Kashiko without taking a moment to think, and rather stupidly at that.

“Papa isn’t dead,” Kaede pointed out, but found herself unable to stop from letting out a couple giggles when her papa’s voice called  _ I sure hope I’m not!  _ from the other room. Her dad sighed, a chagrined sound, and Kashiko’s responding smile was infectious, if full of mischief and somewhat foreboding from the perspective of someone who knew her. Which Kaede did, since she was the older sister, and she had known her sister for her (that is to say, for Kashiko’s) entire life. “You’re only eleven, y’know? How can you say with certainty that you don’t have a soulmate?”

“Oh, and you’re not?” Kashiko pouted. Kaede laughed a little bit, because Kashiko had a point. She was eleven too. Still, she had seniority, so she ought to be the one giving advice on such matters.

“Okay.” Said their father, seeming rather tired. “Kaede, it’s possible that your soulmate is deaf, too. Or that they grew up in a place where singing wasn’t an option for them.” Well,  _ that _ sounded much more sad than them hating to sing, so Kaede really hoped that that wasn’t true. “I wouldn’t worry about it.” His tone said,  _ and they’re definitely not dead,  _ so she nodded and let it be. She didn’t really care that much about soulmates, and in fact had not thought about having one before, aside from a hazy, formless image of some faceless person somewhere in her future. And even then, those thoughts had only occurred arbitrarily, because a teacher or a friend mentioned having a soulmate, and the thought wandered across her mind.

When Kaede turned thirteen, though, and she listened to a boy several years her senior sing along with her piano playing at one of her recitals, she found herself wondering about it again. It wasn’t even because the topic of soulmates came up, but she was curious because the boy had a rather lovely voice. Since she had never heard the singing before, she didn’t really know how the “hearing someone sing” thing worked. Was it a voice somewhere in the back of her mind? Or did it sound like they were standing there with her? And if her soulmate was singing along to music, like the boy was then with her piano playing, would she hear that too? Could his soulmate, whoever that was, hear her playing the piano?

Kaede sang on occasion (even though she was really very bad at it) but she wondered if her soulmate could hear her when she was playing the piano too. Was it a singing-only situation? Or did it apply to all kinds of music? Maybe they could only hear her playing the piano when she was singing as well. But  _ that  _ wouldn’t be good at all, because she was terrible at singing and playing all at once. Perhaps she should ask her fathers, but could her dad or her papa even tell her that much?

She had to stop thinking about it before her mind could wander any further because she was approaching the part in the piece that she had had difficulty with during sight-reading. It went alright, but she didn’t feel very good at it. She thought it was probably because she had gotten distracted. Which meant that she should probably stop thinking about such heavy things during recitals. Kaede flexed her fingers after the performance was over, and that boy who sang along told her that her talent with the piano was remarkable, and she resisted the urge to tell him that it had been a sub-par performance, compared to how she could do usually.

So Kaede resolved to focus on more important things whenever she was doing them. She started thinking about the concept of a soulmate more often after that, because she was at that age where soulmates stared being a more frequent thing where she could see them, but she tried to reserve such thoughts for when she was alone in her bedroom. Preferably at four in the morning, which was a time when she was awake rather frequently, to be honest. Such things tended to happen when one had a bit of an obsession with playing the piano. (Thankfully, her family was used to it, and Kaede had a soundproofed room.)

She really thought it was weird that she’d never heard anyone singing before. They  _ have  _ to have heard her singing. She even started singing in the shower, not because she particularly liked doing so, nor the sound of her own voice, but because she wanted them to know she was there. She wanted to be someone in their life, whoever they were. Also, a part of her was thinking that maybe if they heard her singing more often, they’d feel a little bit inclined to sing too. A reciprocity sort of thing, and also really silly (something she was well aware of) but certainly not enough for her to stop.

When Kaede turned fifteen, her papa asked as he filled a pot with water for mac n’ cheese, “So, heard from your soulmate yet?”

Part of her wanted to lie and say that she had, but she knew that her family would ask for more information. They’d want to know the gender, what kind of voice the person had, what their music taste was. Kaede wouldn’t be able to make any of that stuff up; it wouldn’t make sense if her soulmate ended up being someone completely different. “No,” she replied, and attempted to keep her voice casual. It was a bad position to be in, she knew. She had just entered her first year of high school, and almost everyone her age knew at least  _ something _ about their soulmate, at that point.

“Huh.” Her papa frowned, handing her a bag of macaroni to open. As she did so, he continued speaking. “Well, does anyone catch your eye otherwise?”

  
“Why would they?” Kaede asked, raising an eyebrow. She opened the bag so hard a couple noodles flew across the kitchen. Kashiko, who was standing near the doorway, bent over and picked a dry noodle from the floor. Kaede watched in moderate horror as she put the macaroni in her mouth and crunched it. “Kashiko, that’s gross,” she sighed.

“You’re just afraid of what you don’t understand.” Kashiko retorted through a mouthful of dry macaroni. Their papa gave her a weird look, gesturing for Kaede to dump the noodles into the pot, and shook his head.

  
“I ask because your interest in people might be a good indicator of what kind of soulmate you’re going to have,” he explained, and Kaede poured carefully to avoid splashing water anywhere. “So if your soulmate doesn’t like singing for any reason, you might have other indicators.”

“Y’know, if no one appeals to you, or if nothing appeals to you, you might just be ace like me.” Kashiko offered, more helpfully now, as she opened the fridge. Kaede threw the empty macaroni bag into the trash and watched her sister pull out a jug of milk. Like the disgusting person she was, she opened the jug and drank it directly without grabbing a cup. After she finished drinking, Kashiko continued, grinning. “Do you  _ want  _ a soulmate?”

Frowning, Kaede considered the question. Is sexual attraction really all that decides that kind of thing? What if she wanted a soulmate just to cuddle with? To be in love with? Kashiko was aromantic, too, so maybe that was a factor… but Kaede was pretty sure she was neither of those things. She didn’t want to get into the asexuality part (though she knew for a fact that she  _ wasn’t)  _ but for sure she wasn’t aromantic. She wanted a soulmate. When she saw people walking around with their lovers, holding hands and giving chaste kisses and laughing together at jokes only they could understand, she felt… a feeling of longing, really, was the best way to describe it. Desire. It made her feel almost nostalgic, which was so strange because she had never felt that way before.

She didn’t know what it would feel like, if she was aromantic, but she figured that if she was, those kind of things wouldn’t appeal to her. Romantic things, anyway. And they did. So maybe that wasn’t the reason. No, it definitely wasn’t. She wanted… she wanted a soulmate. She wanted to have someone like that in her life. Maybe it was kind of weird, but she was craving that kind of intimacy. It felt important, somehow, like her life wouldn’t be complete without it. (A kind of dependency that hadn’t fully developed, and that she didn’t like so much.) While she wondered if she should communicate as much, and just be honest with her papa and sister she tapped out the left hand to  _ Canon in D  _ on her leg.

“I mean, it would be nice.” Kaede mused, which felt like a half truth, even though she meant it. Maybe because she wasn’t expressing how much she really did want a soulmate, it reminded her of lying. “But I could go without one?”

Her papa gave her a look, which told her he really didn’t believe that for a second. “You have a soulmate, sweetie.” He promised, and Kaede watched him open the cheese packet. He could only really make mac n’ cheese, and honestly, even his skills in that area were pretty questionable, because when he tore open the packet, orange powder went all over the counter. “They’ll show up when you least expect it, I’m sure.”

Kaede believed him. Even if a tiny, tiny part of her brain thought that there was no way that he could really know that, she  _ wanted  _ to believe him. And besides, barring death, or her soulmate being deaf or mute or something like that (which would be okay, Kaede would love her soulmate no matter what, for sure) there was really no reason for anything weird to be going on. They probably just didn’t like singing. Or maybe they didn’t know how. Or, for whatever reason, something was wrong, and she just couldn’t hear them. She would figure it out. She definitely had a soulmate.

When Kaede turned sixteen, that was when she decided that that might not have been the case. It just didn’t make sense. Who went sixteen years without at least singing a little bit of  _ Row Row Row Your Boat?  _ She grew up in such a musical household, it seemed inconceivable to her that anyone in the world, unless they physically couldn’t, wouldn’t be singing. What circumstances would lead a person to hate music that much? Just a line or two would’ve been fine.

Maybe there was just something wrong with her, and that was why she didn’t have one. Maybe she wasn’t made right for a soulmate; no one in the world would fit properly. Or maybe the universe made a mistake, and didn’t give her one. Maybe she was a complete glitch in the system, totally alone, and that was just the way that things were going to be. It made a bit of sense, actually, because her sister didn’t seem to have a soulmate either. Kashiko was very vocal about never hearing anyone singing before. So maybe it was the two of them, total anomalies, completely soulmate-less. That would’ve been okay, because at least Kaede wouldn’t have been alone, except that it seemed like Kashiko was perfectly fine with not having a soulmate.

“The idea that there’s one person in the world,” Kashiko confided once, at three in the morning. “One person in a sea of billions of people, who is perfect for you, whose personality matches yours exactly- it’s absurd. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I know it’s like, a fact of life. Everyone else hears the singing, so like, it makes sense.” Kaede pressed her lips together, tilted her face into her pillow, and neglected to reply that  _ she  _ had never heard the singing before. “But I don’t buy it! I don’t have a soulmate. There’s no one out there for me.” And her grin seeped into her voice with this. “I’m one of a kind, baby!”

“Does it get lonely?” Kaede couldn’t help but ask; her voice was muffled by the pillow and for a minute she thought Kashiko couldn’t have heard her. But then her sister hummed, like she was waiting for an explanation, so she elaborated. “I mean, I know you’re okay with not having a soulmate, but are you okay with it all the time? Don’t you want one sometimes?”

There was a moment of silence. “I think,” Kashiko started after a moment. “If my soulmate was completely platonic, aro ace like me… just a really great friend who I could confide in and who could anticipate all of my feelings, then… that’d be okay. I’d like that, actually. But no, it doesn’t get lonely.” Kaede heard the sheets rustling as her sister shrugged. “You know, I can’t want something that’s never had any appeal to me. I’m repulsed by the idea of having a romantic partner. Sexual activity is a complete no go. Hand holding? Ick! It’s something that’s probably impossible to understand if you’re not asexual or aromantic. Don’t stress about it, sis.”

And Kaede thought,  _ no, it’s perfectly easy to understand. I just can’t agree at all. _

Because Kaede already had a best friend. It didn’t make waiting for her soulmate (or the lack thereof, at that point) any easier. In fact, she had a lot of friends. Since entering high school, she had an easy time making friends than she did before, so she was surrounded by other people pretty consistently. She found it easy enough to confide in her friends, and they had a lot of fun together.

The thing that sucked, a lot actually, was that a good chunk of them had already found their soulmates. Including her best friend.

Shuichi wasn’t the kind of person to spend all his time with his partner and ignore his friends. He did the opposite, if anything. It sometimes felt like a lot of his time was devoted to hanging around Kaede and boosting her up, which felt unfair, really, because he and Rantaro had a really  _ nice  _ relationship and she didn’t want to take away from that just because she was lonely. For what it was worth, she didn’t think Shuichi hung out around her because he pitied her. It was never even something they spoke about, the soulmates thing. Back when they first met, Shuichi and Rantaro already knew each other, so  _ that  _ didn’t even play a role in their friendship.

They had only really discussed it once, and it was on Kaede’s behalf, to be honest. She was merely curious about when Shuichi and Rantaro met. She had never actually asked before- it always felt like such a taboo thing? And honestly she didn’t want to violate their privacy. It was none of her business, and they were her friends! Not people who she could ask to share personal information for the sake of filling in the gaps in her own knowledge on the subject. She thought it was a pretty normal question, though, one that anybody would ask being around such an absurdly affectionate couple, and Shuichi certainly treated it that way.

He smiled, in that shy way he always did, and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Ah, it was a while ago, and by accident, I suppose?” Shuichi chuckled at the memory, and Kaede felt a warmth in her chest that was partially disturbed by how much she  _ really  _ wanted that kind of feeling for herself. “I was in my second year of middle school, and Rantaro was in his third…” he paused. “I had the jingle from a commercial stuck in my head, and I was humming it under my breath, and he heard me, obviously, and sang it to himself too. It just, happened that we were in the same area at the time, and I heard him singing near me.”

After that, Kaede supposed it was pretty much history. She bit her lip. There wasn’t really much else to say. “Did you guys ever communicate like that? Like, you sang a song, and he sang it too?” She asked anyway, because she felt like she couldn’t help it. For what it was worth, Shuichi merely contemplated a response. His expression was thoughtful, not uncomfortable, and when he spoke again he was still smiling.

“I was always too nervous to do that kind of thing.” He admitted, his cheeks flushing slightly. “But I think we could’ve if I had been brave enough.” He paused, and tilted his head to the side, giving Kaede an inquisitive look that totally did not make her nervous at all. “Is that something that you do with your soulmate, Akamatsu? I’m sure it’s perfectly normal. And if it’s not, it just means you have a special relationship, more so than other people. I wouldn’t worry about it.” His smile was reassuring, but it just stung a bit because that wasn’t what she was worried about, not even slightly. She would’ve liked that, to sing back and forth with her soulmate, to have a special relationship and wonder if it was normal.

But she didn’t say that. She didn’t want to put that on Shuichi, and anyway he was already telling her too much personal information. “Ahaha, no, that’s not it.” She smiled. “It’s just something I’d like to do, is all.” And it was the truth, to the letter, but there were admittedly a couple of letters missing. Shuichi trusted her though, he had never had any reason not to, and that made her feel stupidly guilty even though the reason she wasn’t telling him was because it wasn’t something he should be worrying about.

“Maybe you should try it, then, the next time they sing.” He offered. “I’m sure it’ll mean something to them, too.” That was where Kaede changed the subject, smiling like she had just remembered something, and Shuichi looked like he thought something might be wrong for a moment, but he allowed the subject change anyway, because he was always really considerate like that. Maybe that was why Kaede felt bad being a bit… dishonest, was probably the fitting word there, even though she had a good justification for it. She would get over it. It would be okay.

Kaede’s seventeenth birthday fell at the very beginning of her second year of high school. She laughed when she saw how her friends decorated her foot locker, pretending that she hadn’t seen Kaito and Tenko walking back and forth from the school building after school the day before. They were all incredibly silly. But she cared about them a lot, and being friends with them she really didn’t think so much about all of that soulmate stuff.

Kaito hadn’t met his soulmate yet either (unlike Tenko, whose soulmate was a lazy girl named Himiko, and Kokichi, who Kaede was hesitant to believe because he was something of a pathological liar but whose soulmate apparently attended another school) which Kaede felt bad for being grateful for, but she couldn’t help it. He obviously heard his soulmate, but at least she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t met them yet. Or might not ever, in her case, but her friends didn’t need to know that at all.

She entered class in high spirits, thinking about how terrible the cupcakes were that Tenko made- but how many she was probably going to end up eating throughout the course of the schoolday regardless- and stopped when she saw someone who she didn’t recognise standing at the front of the room. Her immediate thought was that it was a kid from another class, but that didn’t make any sense, because her school was pretty small; there were only two second year classes and she knew all of the kids in both of them. At the very least, Kaede was pretty sure she had never seen this girl before, nor did she attend this school, because…

Well, Kaede thought she would’ve recognised someone with such vivid red eyes.

“Happy birthday, Akamatsu,” their teacher smiled. “Please settle down, everyone,” she added with some annoyance, an eyebrow raised. People quieted, a little bit, and Kaede shook her head, taking her spot near the front of the room. Shuichi settled in next to her, an inside-joke kind of smile on his face, and Kaede found herself laughing a bit, though she couldn’t really look away from the girl standing at the front of the room.

She was pretty. It felt like such a simple statement for something that, to Kaede, didn’t feel all that simple. Her hair was long, brown, and tied into two low ponytails, one of which she was fussing with, her brows furrowed. Her eyes, which were a striking crimson red, were downcast, as though she was counting the tiles. But Kaede got the impression that her fascination with the floor was due to her reluctance to meet anyone’s gaze, rather than the tiles being particularly interesting. She also noticed, because she had been looking at the girl for a while, that she was wearing the winter uniform, and long socks. Which was strange, considering that it was late March, and it was getting warmer.

When the teacher began to explain who this girl was, Kaede tuned back in. Her name was Maki Harukawa. She transferred from a school a bit far away from this one. She would be joining their class for their second and third years. When Maki was asked to say something about herself, she sighed, and shrugged, like she was annoyed.

“I don’t know what much there is to say,” she muttered, and Kaede marveled at how low her voice was; a contralto, maybe? She had a very slight lisp, too, almost unnoticeable, but Kaede heard it. “My old school was a girls academy, but I transferred because my parents didn’t like the curriculum.” Maki shrugged. “And pineapple shouldn’t be on pizza.”

“So, she’s a little misguided,” Kaito remarked in a low voice that was actually far too loud to really be considered a low voice, but nonetheless. “But she’s definitely bestie material! What say you, Shuichi?”

“Huh?” Shuichi looked startled. “Oh, well, yeah, uhm,” he nodded after a moment. “Sure, yeah.”

“Hell yeah!” Kaito beamed, and his voice was, again, extremely loud, but Kaede smiled anyway, because his enthusiasm was contagious. “What do you think, Akamatsu? She seems like a great friend!” Kaede looked back to the front of the room, watched Maki as she listened to the teacher speaking for a moment, her head angled slightly, and eventually nodded her head. Kaito was right. She did seem like a pretty good friend. She was attractive, obviously, but that was probably about the extent of it. She had a soulmate, just like everyone else in that room. Friend was definitely all she was ever gonna be.

Before lunch, Kaede approached the other girl, because she thought it was a nice thing to do. “Hey! Harukawa, right?” Maki stopped, and when she looked at Kaede, the blonde felt a little intimidated by her glare. She turned her head slightly, angling the right side of her face towards the other girl, and raised an eyebrow. It occurred to Kaede that Maki wanted her to repeat herself, so she did. “It’s Harukawa, isn’t it?”

“...Yeah.” She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “What do you want?” Yikes. Hostile. Kaede cleared her throat, managing another, weaker smile, and contemplated a good way to respond. She was really great at staying positive, though! Even if Maki was super intimidating… the way she glared like that was really cute.

“I’m Kaede Akamatsu. I wanted to introduce myself to you, since I’m the class representative of our class.” She smiled, and noticed somewhere that the look Maki was giving her was strange. Searching, in a way that was difficult to describe. Kaede didn’t know how to put a word to it, and she wasn’t sure if doing so would even be a good idea. Eventually, the brunette shrugged, and sighed too, long eyelashes tapping the space beneath her eyes when she blinked.

“Fine. I know who you are now.” Maki huffed. “That’s it, right? You can go now?” She pouted, in a way that Kaede found  _ extremely  _ attractive, but chose not to focus on. Instead, she thought about how disarming it was, to see the other girl making a face like that. Even if she was annoyed, she didn’t seem so threatening anymore! It was nice seeing that she had emotions, in a way.

So Kaede shook her head, smiling more genuinely now. “No, I wanted to invite you to join me and my friends at lunch! Not because I’m class rep,” she added, laughing slightly. “Just because I thought you seemed cool and we’d like the company!”

“...will you leave me alone if I say no?” Maki asked after a moment. Honestly, the answer was yes. Kaede was down to respect the other girl’s wishes if she didn’t want to eat with them. But that kind of follow-up question felt like the type of thing someone would only ask if they secretly wanted to do it, but wanted to seem reluctant about it. If she was right about it, then Kaede figured there wasn’t any harm in a little white lie. Besides, she wanted to be friends with the other girl! It wouldn’t hurt to give her a little push in her direction.

“Probably not!” She beamed, and Maki sighed, gesturing with her hand as if to say,  _ lead the way,  _ so Kaede did, a flutter of contentment in her chest that she labeled as relief that Maki was willing to play along.

Kaede wasn’t going to force her, but Maki ended up sitting with them every day, which was really nice. She thought the other girl might have been a little turned off by the way that Tenko immediately declared how gorgeous she was when she sat down, or how Kaito started talking (very loudly) about why pineapples belonged on pizza- with Kokichi, who of course took the opposing view, but Kaede honestly wasn’t sure if he really felt that way or if he was just doing it to rile up Kaito- but Maki showed up at their table the day after that, and then continued to. Albeit, she did it in a manner that suggested she was annoyed by it, but Kaede thought, secretly, that the other girl liked sitting with them, and she just wasn’t saying anything about it.

She was really great to talk to in a way that Kaede hadn’t been anticipating. Maki struck her as the hostile type- and she  _ was,  _ without a doubt, but there was a bit more to it than that. She wasn’t hostile all the time. Or even most of the time. There was a line between hostile and standoffish and it often felt like Maki was walking it but she was… good for conversation. Excellent for conversation, even.

“You looked upset this morning.” Maki pointed out after school one day, stopping Kaede before she could change her shoes. “Why?” Her manner was extremely blunt, too. It was jarring at first, coming from friends like Shuichi and Rantaro who would layer down all sorts of safety pillows before jumping into a potentially heavy topic, and Kaede couldn’t describe it as anything other than really nice. It felt genuine. It was obviously completely sincere whenever Shuichi or Rantaro approached her, but it felt different with Maki, in a way she couldn’t put to words.

“Oh, you noticed that?” She smiled, even though being confronted like this made her a little bit nervous. She rubbed the back of her neck, wondering what to say. In truth, she’d had an argument with Kashiko on the way out the door. Nothing serious, obviously, but fighting with her twin always left her feeling a bit down. Kaede was tempted to lie, say she just didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, but somehow she didn’t feel like Maki would buy it. She cleared her throat. “I just had a small fight with my sister this morning. I’m feeling a lot better.”

Maki hardly even blinked. “Are you two close?”

“Huh? Me and my sister, you mean?” Kaede asked, even though it was pretty obvious what Maki was talking about. (The other girl made it clear that she thought so, too, with the glare she leveled in Kaede’s direction.) The blonde cleared her throat. “Yeah, we are. We’re twins, y’know?”

“I don’t know, actually,” Maki replied cooly. “You haven’t told me anything about your family.” Which, in all actuality, felt a bit unfair of an accusation considering that Maki hadn’t done so  _ either,  _ but Kaede didn’t see any harm in disclosing that information. She had nothing to hide, and anyway, Maki was her friend! All of her other friends knew about her family. About her fathers and Kashiko. No stress. (Well, maybe a little bit of stress, but Maki already didn’t seem to care about Shuichi and Rantaro dating, so Kaede didn’t see a reason for the other girl to be prejudiced against her fathers. It was just something that she’d dealt with, before, so it induced a feeling of wariness at all times when talking about her family.)

“That’s true, huh…” she agreed, to give Maki an indication of what just ran through her head. “Well, my sister is named Kashiko. She’s the younger twin.” Maki nodded. It was an important distinction. “We live with our fathers. Uhm, we don’t usually fight much,” Kaede segued quickly into the next topic to give Maki less time to comment on it, because it felt awkward otherwise, but she couldn’t stop herself from watching the other girl for her reaction as she continued to speak. Maki didn’t even blink, and she felt a sigh of relief fighting to escape her. She didn’t let it, because that would’ve broken the flow of conversation, but she relaxed her shoulders anyway. “But sometimes it just happens.”

“You fight more when you’re close to a person.” Maki spoke concisely, like she was stating basic facts, even though Kaede didn’t really get it. “When you can tell someone the things they do that upset you, or verbalise your disagreement, it means you feel safe around them.” She adjusted the folds of her skirt. “So don’t feel so bad about fighting. It’s a fundamental part of any healthy relationship. Just make sure you communicate more calmly after the fact.” It was probably the most Kaede had ever heard Maki say all at once. She was startled with how simple Maki made everything sound, even though it hadn’t even occurred to her in the past.

“Harukawa,” she paused, not really sure what to say. “Thank you,” she decided upon, figuring she couldn’t go wrong. Maki huffed out a sigh, and turned away, but before she was completely facing the other direction, Kaede thought that she might’ve been blushing.

“Whatever. It’s just weird seeing you sad.” She muttered. “See you tomorrow.” Maki added, in a very throwaway manner, before exiting the school building and tossing one of her ponytails over her shoulder. Kaede watched her as she walked away, her heart pounding in her chest, and it occurred to her that she might’ve been developing a crush on Maki.

Which was, for sure, definitely, one hundred and ten percent, a bit of a problem. Because Kaede didn’t have a soulmate, and Maki  _ certainly  _ did, and Maki’s soulmate was definitely  _ not  _ Kaede, which meant there was no point in harbouring feelings for her. But it was okay. Or rather, it would be. It was manageable, at least. All Kaede really had to do was crush down those feelings inside of her until she forgot about them. It was just a silly crush, after all. Maki was gorgeous, and nice, so it was really no wonder that Kaede was into her. She’d just ignore the crush until things became normal again.

Unfortunately, things didn’t become normal again. It turned out that the worst way to lose feelings for a person was to spend a lot of time with them every day. They were in the same class, and they sat together at lunch every day, and eventually Maki started joining them after school sometimes, with a very  _ this activity is beneath me  _ attitude but she was present nonetheless. Having Maki around so often made her  _ irrationally  _ happy too, she couldn’t even feel truly upset by it because her brain kept producing happy chemicals whenever she and the brunette made eye contact. It was a conscious effort to keep herself from dissolving into a blushing mess most days, which was so silly because crushes like this weren’t really supposed to happen in the real world? The way things worked was that you had a soulmate, and you settled down with them, and that was it.

Maybe the problem was that Kaede didn’t have a soulmate, though. That made a bit of sense, actually. She probably just had crushes on every attractive person like some lovesick schoolgirl from those weird, dystopia alternate universe stories about worlds without soulmates that she read in the library. It was infuriating! And somehow it felt almost worse, being Maki, because she liked Maki so much. She felt like she was being selfish, spending time with the other girl, when Maki definitely had a soulmate of her own.

It just sucked, that was what it did. Kaede found herself looking up a bunch of sad, sad love songs on the internet and memorising them and singing them at the top of her lungs in the shower. Now that she had established that she didn’t have a soulmate, she didn’t have to worry about anybody hearing her. It just sucked that the reason why she was singing those songs was because she had romantic feelings for a person who definitely did. She was almost jealous of Kashiko, being able to avoid all of that stuff, and being totally comfortable and okay with not having a soulmate at all. God, if that could’ve been her…

After a while, Kaede thought her feelings were starting to die down. She was doing alright at suppressing the urge to smile like an idiot whenever Maki was around, and seeing the other girl so frequently was starting to become more of a normal thing. She looked forward to it for reasons that she liked to think weren’t hormone driven. She was even starting to think that she was seeing Maki as purely a friend, and nothing more than that. But then-

“Y’know,” Kokichi remarked. “I’m kinda tired of you all doubting that I have a boyfriend at another school.” He sounded upset, but with Kokichi it was really difficult to tell how he was actually feeling. The looks he received were plaintive, which meant Kaede wasn’t the only one feeling that way. “I mean it! He’s tooootally my soulmate, y’know?”

“Hm.” Tenko scrunched up her nose. “Tenko has a hard time believing anyone, even a degenerate male, would be interested in a shrimp like Ouma.”

“Hey! You’re such a bully!” Kokichi pouted, but Kaede knew for sure all of a sudden that he was just trying to cause trouble. “First of all, they’re my soulmate, okay, which means I’m exactly their type, and second of all, for someone who’s dating an ugly twelve year old like Yumeno, you really aren’t one to talk.”

“I’m not twelve!” Himiko protested. (She must’ve been used to Kokichi calling her ugly. He had a strange way of showing his affection; Kaede knew that he and Himiko were best friends.) “I’m sixteen like you, and Mommy said I’m a growing girl!”

“Himiko isn’t ugly, either!” Tenko added, looking at Himiko as though she was surprised the other girl didn’t object to the part that probably  _ should’ve  _ been objected to.

“Man, I dunno,” Kaito sighed. “It doesn’t make sense that you would’ve met your soulmate. I have a hard time believing that anyone would date you when you act like that all the time.”

“You’re just jealous because I have a boyfriend and you’re still single,” sneered Kokichi. “You probably don’t even  _ have  _ a soulmate.” Uh… ouch. Kaede kinda felt that. It wasn’t directed at her, obviously, but it still felt a bit like a sucker punch. She bit the inside of her cheek and swallowed hard, trying not to think about how that really didn’t feel good at all. Kokichi didn’t mean it in a mean way. What Kaito said was pretty awful too. She had no reason to be oversensitive about this.

“Wh-” Kaito broke off, flabbergasted. “Rich coming from a person who made up some mysterious boyfriend at a mysterious other school!”

“Oh, Ouma’s boyfriend is real,” remarked Rantaro, idly. Kaede jumped a bit, suddenly remembering that he was there, and wondered if he’d been listening for the whole time. This felt like a strange place to intervene in the conversation. “His name is Kiibo Idabashi. Nice guy. He puts up with a lot of shit.” He laughed at that, and Kokichi giggled too, but nobody else responded for a moment.

“Wait, you mean he’s telling the  _ truth?”  _ Kaito burst out. “But- that- what? Ouma?”   
  


“Why would I lie?” Kokichi pouted. “You know I hate liars!”

“Ah, I know Idabashi,” Shuichi smiled. “I imagine you annoy him a lot, don’t you, Ouma?” The boy giggled in response. Kaito was still sputtering, perhaps attempting to find the proper words to describe the exact emotion he was feeling. Kaede smiled a bit, though she felt it was a bit of an empty smile, because while she didn’t doubt the existence of Kokichi’s soulmate, his words from before were still stinging a bit and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

Maki sighed; something she did fairly often. “You’re making a big deal out of something that doesn’t have to be.” She remarked, and Kaede looked over at her. She was peeling an orange, and in fact she hadn’t even looked up at them once through what she said, but her tone was steady and her voice was remarkably firm. She had taken on that no-nonsense voice she used whenever she thought everyone was being annoying. Clearly, this constituted as one of those times. And it made a lot of sense to Kaede, honestly.

“Whaddya mean, Harumaki?” Kaito asked, pouting a bit. “I think soulmates are a pretty big deal! It’s the person you’re going to be with for the rest of your life!”

“It doesn’t matter.” Maki glared at him. “Soulmates are dumb. Treating it like a big deal and building it up is dumb too. Your soulmate is just an annoying person in your head who sings sometimes. I don’t see any point in using energy trying to find them.” Something about what she was saying… clicked, for Kaede, in a way that was hard to describe. She blinked at Maki, a strange feeling entering her chest.

“You hear your soulmate, then, Harukawa?” Shuichi asked, and then immediately backtracked. “S-Sorry, it’s not a tactful question at all, you just seem so unconcerned by it that I thought you might…”

“Of course I do.” Maki glared down at the table, messing with one of her ponytails. “It doesn’t matter. They’re a bad singer, anyway. And I don’t need to waste my time looking for them.”

“Classic Harumaki!” Giggled Kokichi. “Judging your soulmate by their singing voice?”

“Don’t call me that.” Maki snapped. “Do you want to die?”

But Kaede wasn’t really listening, anymore. She was thinking about what Maki said. About it not mattering, and there being no point in spending time trying to find them. It… made her feel… better, in a way, to hear her say that. To hear her say she didn’t care about finding her own soulmate. Maybe it was because it was Maki, someone who she had a crush on, saying as much, that it made her feel good. She didn’t really want to look too much into it. What mattered was that Maki didn’t care about soulmates, and that meant that… she probably wouldn’t be offended that Kaede had feelings for her. Even if she didn’t return them. She wasn’t wronging anyone. It was… okay.

It wasn’t like Kaede acted on her feelings after that, but she stopped actively suppressing them. She didn’t see a point to anymore. If sometimes she chose to sit down next to Maki rather than Kaito, or leaned into it on the rare occasion that Maki touched her for any reason, then that was her business. She couldn’t be blamed for being a little bit indulgent in her crush. She was aware that her actions were classified as flirting, but… well, she didn’t have it in her to feel guilty. She figured the feelings would fade eventually, and then that would be that. No point losing any sleep over it.

What Kaede started losing sleep over, instead, was the piano recital that was coming up. Piano was a hobby of hers, a joy, a passion, even, if she was given the opportunity to call it as much. She usually looked forward to her recitals. Especially when she had people performing with her, like she did this time. She was being joined by a girl named Sayaka, who was an incredibly nice girl from a different high school in the area. Since Sayaka had such a nice voice, she wanted everything to be perfect. Even if the music she was playing wasn’t her usual kind of music.

It was just that she wasn’t having the easiest time learning the music. In fact, she was having an extremely  _ difficult  _ time doing so. In theory it should’ve been easy. Nothing that she hadn’t done before. But the parts just weren’t meshing properly. She had a large portion of it down, and she was doing okay, but then she would get to the bridge and there would be all these complicated jumps and trills and… she wasn’t having a very good time, suffice to say. She was just so stressed out about it! She wanted the piece to do well for Sayaka. And it was probably the fact that she wanted to do so well that was tripping her up so much.

Kaede didn’t confide in her friends and family about the problems that she was having with it. It was sort of second nature to deceive them at that point, which felt really bad to say but it was true, and that was just how things were. The only person she even mentioned it to was Maki, and Maki told her that she needed to relax a bit, and at the time Kaede said thanks but afterwards she was admittedly extremely frustrated because she had been trying that for a while and honestly it hadn’t been yielding any results!

The day of the performance came much too quickly. Practices went fine. Going over the part alone with Sayaka, she was able to break it up into sections and in that way it sounded alright. (Her problem was with playing the song as a whole.) Sayaka beamed at her before they were supposed to go on stage, and Kaede smiled back, but on the inside she was panicking a little bit, and when Maki showed up backstage about five minutes before they were to perform, she didn’t even have the energy to be surprised, or flustered.

“You’re stressed,” Maki commented, which was definitely obvious but Kaede bit her tongue. “Do you need to calm down?”

  
“No, that’ll, uh, make things worse, I think,” Kaede replied without thinking much about it, wringing her hands. Maki watched her do so for a moment before reaching out, taking both of them and gently relaxing her fingers. Kaede’s throat dried out a little bit, and her heart would’ve pounded a hole right through her chest if not for the impending performance.

“You need these to play.” Maki told her, and then released her hands. “Look, uh,” she sighed. “Maizono is a good singer, isn’t she?” Kaede nodded, swallowing hard. She wasn’t sure why this mattered. “I know the song she’s doing. That’s not to say it’s derivative or anything, it’s just a good song.” Maki sighed, and shrugged. “I’ve never sang before, but I like to think I could sing all the words.”

Kaede wasn’t really listening. “Y-Yeah, it’s a good song,” she agreed, and looked away in time to remain oblivious to the slight desperation in Maki’s expression.

“You’ve always helped me to feel like more of a person.” Maki said, as if that was supposed to mean something other than what she was saying. “I haven’t told you that. But it’s true.”

Since they’d only known each other for a few months, Kaede thought the use of the word  _ always _ was a little strange, but she was hardly going to comment. “I’m glad to hear that, Harukawa, uhm,” she swallowed, trying to figure out how to say that she wasn’t feeling any better at all. “Look, I think I could use some water, so I’m just going to-”

Maki stopped her with a hand on her arm. Her tone was urgent. “Akamatsu, you need to know that I-”

“Akamatsu!” Sayaka’s voice. “We’re on!”

Suppressing the urge to say  _ crap!  _ aloud, Kaede called out an, “I’m coming!” before turning quickly to Maki. “I’ll talk to you right after the show, okay?” She promised, and pretended her hands weren’t seriously sweating. “Enjoy it! I’m gonna try really hard to do well.” When she smiled, she felt it almost looked authentic. Maki looked at her for a moment before sighing and nodding her head, releasing her arm and gesturing for her to go.

“Good luck.” She stated, and Kaede managed another smile. After making sure Maki saw it, she turned and hurried out onto the stage by Sayaka’s side.

The beginning of the song went fine. At least, that was what Kaede thought, but she could barely hear anything over the sound of her heart beating. Sayaka’s voice settled over the room like a blanket. She was performing well, and Kaede was doing okay, too. If she messed up, though, the entire atmosphere would be ruined, she knew. The chorus went over smoothly, well even, and she managed to get through the second and third verses without any mistakes.

Her stomach fluttered, though, as she approached the bridge. Her fingers felt cold and clammy, the keys slick with sweat, and her foot was numb as it pressed and lifted from the sustain pedal. She swallowed hard, a few times, but her throat felt ever so impossibly thick, and she found that it was difficult to breathe. If she got through the chorus okay, she didn’t know, because suddenly she was at the bridge. She was so hyper focused on the music that it all blurred into one mess of grey. She couldn’t even read it anymore, her hands were just moving.

On the microphone, Sayaka took a silent breath before she began to sing. The voice Kaede heard, though, didn’t belong to her. The person who was singing sounded like they were right behind her, but at the same time whispering in her ear, and it was so surreal Kaede almost thought they really were.

It was a low, raspy voice that didn’t sound like it had ever been used before, but the notes were all carried well. The singer lacked vocal control, in a very noticeable way, but the pitch was nice and it was clear that the song was being sung with love.

The voice, Kaede noticed, also belonged to Maki, and she felt herself float right out of her body at the revelation. She had never heard such a thing before, an echoey sound in her mind with a rich chocolatey tone, and goosebumps were rising on her arms, and her fingers felt stiff but free too as they danced over the keys, and-

And Maki stopped singing, and Kaede realised she was at the final chorus, slowing down in time with Sayaka, and then her fingers pressed down onto the final chord, and it occurred to her that she got through her. The audience was deafening, but as Kaede struggled to her feet and met Sayaka’s wide smile, her mind couldn’t have been further away.

Maki was still standing backstage where Kaede left her, leaning against the door frame with an unreadable look on her face. When they made eye contact, though, the brunette’s face flushed a little bit, and she tore away her gaze. The act made Kaede’s heart flip in her chest, but she didn’t know what to say. Or how she would say it, if that was even possible. Instead, she didn’t say anything, she just moistened her lips and tried to gather her thoughts.

“I’m sorry.” Maki said finally, and Kaede felt the tension shattering into a million pieces. “I knew you were my soulmate the minute I heard your voice, and I should’ve told you, but I didn’t think you would believe me.” She inhaled. “I’ve never sung before, and I didn’t want to do that, even when I first met you, but it wouldn’t have been fair to expect you to believe that I was your soulmate without ever having heard my voice.”

“I don’t really understand,” Kaede broke off, and then tried again. She didn’t want Maki to feel bad. “Why haven’t you sung before?”   
  


Maki paused for a moment, and then brushed her hair away from her right ear. For the first time, Kaede noticed a small hearing aid tucked into it. Hidden behind her ponytail. “I’m Deaf,” explained the brunette, and as the pieces settled into place, Kaede felt her throat starting to close up. “For the beginning of my life, your voice was the only one I ever heard. And you playing the piano,” she added all of a sudden, her eyes a bit wide. “I always heard it when you played the piano. I don’t think I would’ve been able to even imagine sound if not for your voice always being there in my head.”

“Wait, but…” Kaede paused. “What about what you said that one time? About not wasting time looking for a soulmate?”

With a small smile, Maki remarked, “I don’t really need to look for you since you’re standing right here.” Kaede laughed a little bit, though she felt silly for asking. “But I mostly only said that for Momota’s sake. I think it’s something that he’s upset about, that he hasn’t found his soulmate yet.” She let her hair fall back down in front of her hearing aid, fussed with her skirt. “Listen, I… wanted to tell you. But a part of me always thought that you wouldn’t…” she trailed off. “I grew up in an orphanage. I got adopted by a really wealthy family in my first year of middle school, that’s why I’ve been able to get hearing aids and speech therapy and attend regular school and all that, but I… didn’t grow up with the mindset that I was valued.”

“Harukawa,” Kaede cleared her throat. “You know, I’ve- had a really big crush on you for a long time, so I-” she watched Maki’s gaze snap back to meet hers, and felt a rush of heat into her face. “W-Well, I mean, I- y’know, I- yeah.” She sighed. “I’m extremely into you. And you- you really saved me just now, I’m pretty sure I would’ve messed that up if you hadn’t done that.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Maki sighed. “You were overthinking it, so I sang to distract you. You’re the best pianist in the world, I’m pretty sure. You’re just down on yourself all the time and it got in the way.” Her expression was serious. “I think you would’ve done well regardless. I just wanted to help anyway.”

And Kaede wanted to say,  _ I disagree,  _ but honestly, this didn’t feel like an argument that she wanted to have. It didn’t matter. She was always going to think that Maki had saved her with this, that things had only worked out because her soulmate saved the day.

Her soulmate. Maki. Maki was her soulmate. Kaede felt like blinking and rubbing her eyes over and over again, checking to see if her mind was playing tricks on her. There was no way that this could actually be real. Maki? Her  _ soulmate?  _ Really? That didn’t feel like reality, that felt like a fairy tale, a perfect happy ending wrapped with a big red bow. She wasn’t entirely sure still that she wasn’t dreaming, even though everything had been, and still was, incredibly vivid up until then.

“Can you pinch me?” Kaede asked. “I’m having a really hard time believing that you’re- that you’re actually my-”

“I’ll do you one better.” Maki offered, and when Kaede blanched, the other girl stepped forward, reaching up to touch her face with one hand. Her hand was cool and smooth against her cheek, which was definitely a thousand degrees with how much blood was rushing to her face, and it molded into her skin like it belonged there, or something. When Maki smiled, a piece settled into place in Kaede’s chest, and she sucked in a breath. Right. This made sense. This was how things were supposed to be.

She  _ had  _ a soulmate.

(When Maki pushed herself up for a kiss, Kaede reached out and tucked her arms around the brunette’s waist, and she wasn’t too surprised to find that they fit there perfectly, like the last couple pieces of a puzzle.)

**Author's Note:**

> hmm :D
> 
> okay I have a lot to answer for I know I haven't posted (aside from TBL) in sooooo long but this is the reason. I've been working on my entries for the soulmate collab and I haven't had time to work on my other multichapters. I have a lot of similar projects scattered throughout December (as well as a couple gift fics that are,, long overdue, tbh) so stay tuned lmao. I'll update Search and Headache soon and there are definitely more oneshots on the way!
> 
> anyway, I'm really proud of this! I don't write a lot of soulmate AU content (because I'm kind of cynical myself) but I had so much fun writing this! Kaemaki is suuuuuch a good ship I can't believe I've been sleeping on it all this time
> 
> I was going to do Amamatsu (y'know, since I'm, an Amami stan) and call more attention to my "Kaede is a terrible singer" headcanon but,, uh, well,,, girls. cute? and also I feel like this one is pretty solid
> 
> hadksjhfdskj I don't know what else to say so I'm just going to post it! hi FWC y'all are literally the sweetest and ily


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